Kolkata: England pacer James Anderson perhaps wasn’t anticipating this. It’s not just R Ashwin, who has confronted him for taking jibes at the Indian Test skipper Virat Kohli on the latter’s technique. Former cricketers, including Inzamam-ul-Haq and Kapil Dev have joined the Slam Anderson group, criticising the English seamer for his uncalled for comments. “It is surprising to me that Anderson should question Kohli’s runs and ability because I haven’t seen him take too many wickets in India,” the former Pakistani skipper said on the Geo Super Sports channel, reports PTI.
“Does Anderson mean to say that if you get runs in England you get some sort of certificate that makes you a quality batsman? Don’t the English and Australian players struggle when they play in the sub-continent? Does that mean they are bad players or weak teams? To me it does not matter where you get runs because in Test matches runs are runs,” Haq added.
“I always judge a batsman by seeing how many times the runs he scores leads to his team winning matches. In my opinion if a batsman scores 80 and it helps his team win, it matters more to me than someone scoring 150 and his team still losing. He is a quality player and when he is getting runs his team does well. That is important to judge or classify a batsman’s value. There is hunger in him for runs,” elaborated the current chairman of selectors, who holds Virender Sehwag as the most dangerous Indian batsman when he captained Pakistan.
And Inzy has support from none other than the Haryana Hurricane, Kapil Dev. “Virat can very well play in all conditions. He is simply playing fabulous cricket. It is great to see an Indian play like this. I have never seen a cricketer like him,” said the former Indian captain.
When asked if Kohli could break Sachin Tendulkar’s records, Kapil said, “All I would say is look at Virat’s record. That speaks for itself. The records show that he is the best at the moment.” But the former all-rounder would reserve his comments on Kohli’s captaincy as of now. “It is too early. He has got a long way to go.”
Kapil’s former teammate, Madan Lal, however heaped praises on Kohli, the leader as well. “He has created new passion in the team and has given confidence to all the players. A leader has to give a lot of confidence to the players and he has done that. His batting form has been phenomenal. Let people like Anderson say whatever they want, it doesn’t make a difference,” said Lal.
(With inputs from PTI)